Artist: MONTROSE
Album: MONTROSE REMASTERED (CD)

Year: 1973/ 2009
Media type: CD

THE DEBUT Montrose album is universally regarded as one of, if not the greatest hard rock albums of all time. Released in late 1973, it introduced both a sound and a swagger that single-handedly dragged heavy rock kicking and screaming from its turgid proto-metal roots into a modern streamlined era, opening up a brave new world of possibilities. It was the sound of a mould being smashed to smithereens and the birth of a new epoch; a sound that Van Halen would co-opt for their own earth shattering debut four years later. For guitarist Ronnie Montrose and frontman Sammy Hagar, this was indeed history in the making.

It has been rightfully said that there is not a weak track on this album. Every guitar riff, drum break and ball-squeezing vocal rings out with a pristine clarity that sounds as astounding now as it did when it was first released. Essential to their monumental sound is the creative axis of Sammy Hagar and Ronnie Montrose, who provide the classic guitar/vocalist foil, in a tradition set by Plant/Page, Jagger/Richards and Tyler/Perry. With Hagar’s immediately identifiable vocals and Montrose’s juggernaut guitar riffs the results are truly mind blowing.

It is an album full of classic hard rock moves. From ‘Rock The Nation’, to ‘Bad Motor Scooter’, through ‘Rock Candy’ (a track so good, in fact, that a record company was named in its honour!) to the truly Herculean ‘Space Station #5’ there is no denying the sheer thermo-nuclear power. With the emphasis on maximum mayhem we ask only that no prisoners be taken.

TRACKLIST:

1. Rock The Nation
2. Bad Motor Scooter
3. Space Station #5
4. I Don’t Want It
5. Good Rockin’ Tonight
6. Rock Candy
7. One Thing On My Mind
8. Make It Last

LINE-UP:

Sammy Hagar – lead vocals
Ronnie Montrose – guitar
Bill Church – bass
Denny Carmassi – drums